CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, November 22, 1994
3
Offended listeners petition KC station
Students ask KFKF to use discretion
Meghan Dougherty/KANSAN
Curtis Spencer and Melody Petet, both Topeka seniors, discuss a petition that their Psychology of Women class sent to KKFF radio station in Kansas City. The students of the class are against what they say is a derogatory joke-of-the-day contest held by the station.
By Manny Lopez
Kansan staff writer
Eddie Ho does not think the jokes that are told on KPKF are funny.
He and about 20 other KU students from his Psychology of Women class have written and signed a letter asking station officials to publicly apologize and refrain from telling jokes that are derogatory toward women. The Kansas City, MO., station, 94.1 FM, holds a joke-of-the-day contest every morning at 7:40 on the Dan and Mary Show. Callers are asked to tell a joke to win various prizes.
"These jokes, which are comprised of discrimination, constantly degrade and insult the female gender," the letter said. "Enticing the callers with prizes becomes the motivation for creating more degrading and tasteless jokes."
He said he thought the radio station was not responsible.
"The radio station has ethical standards they should follow," said Ho, Arcadia, Calif., senior. "I'm here to make a stand because it's something I believe in."
On Thursday, the group of students gathered after their class had ended and signed the letter, which they then sent to KFK.
"Jokes should be good, clean and fair." Hoasid.
Another student from the class,
Melody Petet, Lawrence junior, said
she thought it was wrong for the radio station to offer prizes and awards.
KFKF had not received the letter as of yesterday, but the station's general manager, Dan Wastler, said he thought the students probably misunderstood the contest.
"We don't tell the jokes," he said. "We petition the listeners, who then call with their own jokes."
Wastler said the joke-of-the-day contest was not designed to single out any gender, race, religion or the like. He said once he gets the letter he would consider its contents and
make an appropriate decision.
Dan Robertson and Mary McKenna have been hosting the show for nine years and the listener's attitudes and opinions shape the direction of the day's jokes, Wastler said.
"Mary is a blonde," Wastler said. "She brings on a lot of the innuendoes."
Wastler said he had never received a formal letter complaining about the contest.
Still, Ho and his classmates want the derogatory remarks stopped.
"Eventually, the remarks could be directed to other minority groups," Ho said. "It is already hard enough for women to be fully accepted."
He said he did not want the radio station to have to end its contest. He did say that the station should be more responsible because anyone could turn the dial to 94.1 and hear the jokes.
Another reason the students sent the letter was summarized in its final sentence: "When one human being is discriminated against, we are all affected, too."
KU professor questions philosophy of execution
By David Wilson
Kansan staff writer
A year ago, Russell Shafer-Landau, professor of philosophy, opposed the death penalty, but he admits that he would have wanted it for someone who had been found guilty of killing his wife and child.
But now, he can't even justify his own thirst for vengeance.
At a presentation last night at the Kansas Union, Shafer-Landau told a group of about 15 philosophy students that one of the most popular arguments for the death penalty — retribution — couldn't be justified because it was too arbitrary.
The difficulties of measuring how much a criminal deserved to suffer for a given crime, he said, undermined retribution as a justification for the death penalty.
Advocates of the death penalty cannot say that anyone deserves to die, he said.
"They have no way of giving us a criterion for determining whether a person deserves the death penalty," he said.
Other common justifications for punishment, such as reform of the criminal or deterrence of future crimes, either do not apply to the
"The death penalty is not an effective deterrent according to the best evidence we have," he said.
In a discussion following his presentation, Shafer-Landau shot down some arguments against the death penalty.
"The state outlaws kidnapping," he said. "But the state does just that when it incarcerates someone."
The government isn't entirely hypocritical to punish killing by killing, he said, because hypocrisy is sometimes inherent in punishment.
death penalty or are not used by death penalty advocates, he said.
Shafer-Landau said he agreed with those who said the death penalty wasn't a deterrent because it was rarely carried out. But if more executions were carried out, the chances of innocent people receiving the death penalty would increase, he said.
Other disadvantages of the death penalty, Shafer-Landau said, included the racial imbalance of people put to death, the cost of appeals of the death penalty and the chance that an innocent person could be executed.
Lawrence teens arrested for vandalizing walkway
"By putting them away for good, you increase their chances for overturning a wrongful conviction," he said. "Life imprisonment is pretty terrible, but you could still read Plato."
Kansanstaffreport
Two 16-year-old Lawrence men and a 17-year-old Lawrence woman were taken into custody by KU police for spray painting walls in the walkway leading from the Memorial Stadium parking lot to the Kansas Union.
According to police reports, the
The three were released into the custody of their parents and are scheduled to appear in Douglas County District Court Dec. 5.
juveniles painted about 20 slogans and pictures in the underground walkway. The graffiti was painted in white, black and green. Police said that they did not think that the incident was gang-related.
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